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Kurt Andersen@kurtandersen.bsky.social |
Great Washington Post nostalgia study. Adults think U.S. society was historically nicest and comfiest—most moral and close-knit, families happiest—whenever they happened to be little kids, and culture (music, movies, TV, fashion, sports, food) best whenever they were adolescents. wapo.st/3WXd9xS
115 replies 595 reposts 1673 likes
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@margaritas4all.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Cool. Now ask why - because that's when you felt safe, and that's when things were new (to you).
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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soundgood2
@soundgood2.bsky.social
[ View ] |
When they had no responsibilities because their families took care of their basic needs. I think this applies more to people with reasonably secure childhoods.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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TurblesCelbor
@turblescelbor.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Good thing my childhood sucked so I don't have nostalgia at all.
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Mirar
@mirar.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I need to see this over age of the people answering, to verify it's not just averaging towards 1989 over the entire population.
0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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Jenni
@jcurries.bsky.social
[ View ] |
OK I can understand all this except television. Television was unwatchable until I was well into middle age and now it’s great 😛
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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🕯️
@candlelocks.bsky.social
[ View ] |
feeling incredibly smug about my own answers to this. like i'd have to have a head injury to think that the late 90s/early 2000s were "the most moral society"
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Cutename
@cutename.bsky.social
[ View ] |
As adolescents, we have a very limited knowledge of the world, especially the evils. As kids, we have few responsibilities, and big shiny world to explore. Compared to the struggles that come with growing up, working, paying bills, of course we will look back to this age as favorite.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Crazy Cat Lady Abroad
@crazycatladyabroad.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Ah, but when was the Washington Post best?
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Marque
@marquemaire.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I think the 90's were peak societal moment. Largely prosperous and peaceful. Before the Internet. I was in my 40's.
1 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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Stefan E. Jones
@stefanejones.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I'm an outlier. Even as a kid I knew the mid/late 1960s were tumultuous times (I remember coverage of the RFK and MLKjr assassinations, body counts, protests). And the early 1970s were awful, awful for teen nerds/geeks.
1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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Little Munchkin
@littlemunchkin.bsky.social
[ View ] |
thinking really hard about why i didn't notice propaganda when I was 9 years old. probably because there wasnt any
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Mediocrebirder
@tinajkl.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Do Gen X’ers do nostalgia? Isn’t that a bit…mawkish? My fashion concerns are “does that come in black” I think we try and avoid perky music from any era. Excuse me while I go listen to Black Hole Sun.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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TheOneTrueJim
@theonetruejim.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Based on a completely objective survey (n=1) in my home, these results are bollocks.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Public Universal Girlfriend 🏳️⚧️
@girlfriend.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It's pretty easy to take this as a biological rule, but it's more likely that the basic state of the economy-- a system that treats entrants as an unfortunate and temporary expense, to be disposed of as quickly as possible-- hasn't changed since at least the 1950s.
0 replies 1 reposts 3 likes
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@bunshonokai.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Ah 8-12 that magical time when kids are learning that thier parents are lying sacks of shit using them for social clout, and that no, other kids parents/families don't necessarily treat them in certain ways, and they latch onto TV families instead. (Exaggeration for somewhat dark comedic effect)
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Policy_g
@policyg.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This is an incredible study!
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@davet711.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Somebody else was paying the bills when you're younger.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Mir
@miriam.lol
[ View ] |
That’s actually fascinating
0 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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Frank Grande
@frankg962.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Of course people think this. Everyone is nostalgic for a time when their lives were simple, it doesn’t get any simpler than when you’re a child and you have no responsibility. People need to grow up. As to culture, My parents derided the idea that any music in the 70’s would be remembered fondly
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Nope
@torshi.bsky.social
[ View ] |
When I was a kid they were trying to make the kind of marriage I wanted illegal in the state constitution
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ozma
@rowyourbot.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I think all the good stuff happened before I was born. It feels like nostalgia though? I thought this as a youth so the markers of this time remind me of my youth.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@ericholmes.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The one category I can't believe this works for is food. The options today are just vastly greater/better
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Patrick Delahanty
@pdelahanty.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Look at all the movies that came out in 1984 and I don’t know how anyone can say that any other single year was better.
Ghostbusters, Gremlins, an Indiana Jones movie, Karate Kid, Police Academy, a Star Trek, Terminator, Last Starfighter, A Christmas Story…
www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1984/
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Justin
@lifefeed.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Source: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-0...
0 replies 3 reposts 15 likes
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Christopher A Gilbert
@chrisagilbert.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Face it, ya peaked at 10 years old. See, this is why we can't have nice things.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Aviendha69 - ⊃∪∩⪽
@aviendha69.bsky.social
[ View ] |
to be fair, most of my family was shit, but my (single) mom could afford a nice 3-bedroom, in the city, on a bookkeeper's salary. As a woman, in the 80's.
0 replies 1 reposts 9 likes
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Aviendha69 - ⊃∪∩⪽
@aviendha69.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I wonder why
2 replies 3 reposts 17 likes
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DR Drew Pinskeet
@davidralin.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Well, we’re gonna fix that with this generation.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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SockyNoob
@sockynoob.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Music is the least surprising imo.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@johnness.bsky.social
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0 replies 0 reposts 6 likes
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Kevin Dreyfuss-Wells
@drywell.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Interesting, but the Post did much better nostalgia studies back in the 1980’s
5 replies 4 reposts 218 likes
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SpiritMuse
@spiritmuse.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The world was "best" when you were still too little to understand how the world really was.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@golvio.bsky.social
[ View ] |
My life got way better when I realized *now* is probably one of the best times to be a fan of music (so far) because we’re absolutely spoiled for choice, there’s extremely niche new stuff constantly coming out, and it’s easier to find obscure old bands from before you were born than ever.
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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zzɐʞ
@kaszeta.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Eh. We don't do nostalgia as well as we did back in the day.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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@mcdaragh.bsky.social
[ View ] |
1 replies 1 reposts 155 likes
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Christopher D. Brown Ph.D.
@cdbrow1.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The US Peaked in 1986 - this is a KNOWN FACT.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Ninjakick
@ninjakick.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Subconscious coping mechanism to help people accept the inevitability of death... dying don't feel nearly as bad if you think the whole world has gone down the shitter in just your short lifetime.
1 replies 0 reposts 14 likes
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MizzKaraRose (she/her)🏳️⚧️
@mizzkararose.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I hope to god this trend dips for those born in the 80s, because there’s just no way of looking at that decade and seeing peak morality
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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@tom4okstate.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Laughing and crying at once thinking about my two kids someday thinking ify this current moment as a time when America was most moral and caring.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Ron Henry
@ronhenry.net
[ View ] |
I can't help but think of the droll old chestnut (attributed to fan Peter Graham) that the "Golden Age" of science fiction is "thirteen."
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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J. D.
@jdetc.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This is one of those polls that supports an intuitive idea but is methodologically junk at least as presented.
2 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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Kim
@kimoco.bsky.social
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It’s a dumb question imo
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Jenny Griffee
@jgriffee.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Oh, yeah. You ever notice how many people act as if all pop culture--music especially--stopped the minute they graduated from high school or college? Their tastes ossify at that point and NEVER CHANGE.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Tottenham HotChicken in these streets
@michaelgwhiz.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I seem to clearly remember the mid 90's as being violent as hell and also stunningly wack culturally? Stupid ADD-Recall Brain won't even nostalgia correctly
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Beejieweejie she/her
@beejieweejie.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Ah, to once again experience the cheese ball, and the laugh track...
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Mark Rice
@markriceny.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I cannot say that I view the late 1970s as a paradise.
0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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ZeroFunctionalValue
@rayleighscatter.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Another massively subjective opinion poll pretending to be "data". These people also thought that climate change was a joke, dot com and real estate were life long investments and yellow-cake patriotism was real ....
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Keith Ammann
@themonstersknow.com
[ View ] |
3 replies 0 reposts 12 likes
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Jen Canary
@canarynoir.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Yeah, John Oliver did a piece on this back on the daily show a very long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it. The good old days were when people were children and didn’t actually have to deal with any of the shit that was going on.
0 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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@lokicharms.bsky.social
[ View ] |
That’s the best Joy Division album.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Devin𓅃
@devin-eleven.bsky.social
[ View ] |
These people are insane, I remember people complaining in every decade. Radio is a special case because it is kind of dead now, so it probably was better at any time in the past.
0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
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Patricia Wallinga, famous MiG insulter
@pwallinga.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Were there any younger millennials in this study? Like, at all? Because I have very vivid memories of the Great Recession years that are around that high point in this graph, and lemme tell you, I would not rank a single one of those highly
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Nicole Brookus
@nbrookus.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I have this conversation with my Mom all the time. Are things really as bad as Fox News tells you, or do you just know about them now?
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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mikevagomikevago
@mikevago.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It's just The Onion's "All-Time Best Year For Movies Was When You Were Twelve." write large.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Adam Trotter
@astrotter.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The older I get, the more I appreciate what an insidious and malignant force nostalgia is
4 replies 6 reposts 53 likes
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Frying Pan
@bluemirrah.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This also fits nicely with "What's wrong with kids these days" and "No one wants to work".
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Tommy Valdez
@thomasav.bsky.social
[ View ] |
ALT text (Please note, the bottom of the chart reads: The footer of the chart reads: Note: We used the midpoint of each decade. If you were born in 1990 and said radio peaked in the 2000s, we'd mark you as saying radio peaked when you were 14.5, or halfway between 2000 and 2009...
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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BlueGrin
@bluegrin.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Except Gen-Xers can actually point to a couple of objective reasons (TCA of 1996, MP3's/Loudness war) for why music and radio had already peaked by the mid 90's and it's been downhill ever since.
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Ersatz Haderach
@striderhlc.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It’s related to the phenomenon by which pop music peaked when I was most emotionally vulnerable to trite love songs
1 replies 1 reposts 38 likes
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L.T.
@larrythesequel.bsky.social
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My *favorite* music is that of the early 90s, when I was indeed in my tween/early teens, but I tend to break with other middle aged folks in remaining stuck exclusively in that time. I’ve found lots to enjoy about every era of music in my lifetime (and many eras before it).
2 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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JWMangrum
@jwmangrum.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I think my source is a half-remembered Cracked article, but isn’t a theory that everyone thinks the music of their teens was the best because melatonin production drops off as we age? We’re literally biochemically less passionate later on.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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JWMangrum
@jwmangrum.bsky.social
[ View ] |
How any Gen-Xer can think families were happiest when we were kids completely escapes me.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Lady Thorne
@lady-thorne-kc.bsky.social
[ View ] |
They didn't ask me...mfs
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Jeff ♨ Darcy
@obdurodon.bsky.social
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Sometimes people ask me what it was like growing up in Aotearoa/NZ. I've never really been able to answer that, because in addition to *where* I was there's also *who* I was (a child) and *when* that was (70s mostly). They're all entangled. It's impossible for me to say which I'm nostalgic for.
0 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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SC Prince of Tides
@sctideprince.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The author of the greatest description of Trump - the short- fingered vulgarian. Been a big fan since my magazine days in New York City in the 80s and 90s.
2 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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Ronda Watts
@lovelypeach.bsky.social
[ View ] |
🙂
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Charlie88.bsky.social
@charlie88.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Almost no one in Gen X or Gen Z thinks that. Only Boomers think this before they totaled the country.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Doug Hibbard
@dhibbard.bsky.social
[ View ] |
If you've ever argued with someone of a different age about what era of Saturday Night Live was best, you've already experienced this phenomenon.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Walter IV
@walteriv.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This is 100% reflected by Alito, Rufo, Hannity, etc. They all long for their childhood perspectives of America.
3 replies 2 reposts 37 likes
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Elizabeth🜆
@elizajoku.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I think this is also when the rules for any sport in question were the best, most pure, and every rule change since has been an abomination.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Dave Bradley
@sciencebase.com
[ View ] |
Every generation thinks it invented sex...
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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TWuG, The Original
@twug.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Hardly surprising. "The golden age is 12" has long been known in various fandoms.
2 replies 1 reposts 50 likes
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Robleh
@robbbby.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Pop culture was best when I was in high school and just after. Everything else was best when I was too young to know what was going on.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@thewarpedone.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Super interesting. I wonder if there is any tangible connection to that age and the emergence of consciousness and/or memories being “saved” by the brain. I didn’t read the article yet.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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DMS Wojcicki
@dmswojcicki.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Can report that this doesn't work at all for the early 70s
2 replies 0 reposts 6 likes
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Thomas Perkins
@tnperkins4.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I can see it.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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The Professional Internet Bum
@professionalbum.bsky.social
[ View ] |
As I described it once; You miss the taste of cereal before your parents divorced.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Nihl L'Amas
@nih-llamas.bsky.social
[ View ] |
@intelwire.bsky.social Is it not weird that music has one of the most clear absolute peaks (70s), but also the narrowest peak in the age-based charts?
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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synchroma
@synchroma.com
[ View ] |
Also know as the ‘JoyDivisionOGraph’
1 replies 0 reposts 11 likes
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This Sandwichman is Tom Walker
@thesandwichman.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Make America Childhood/Adolescence Again.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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zoobadger
@zoobadger.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Those people didn't have their big brother John pinning them to the floor and farting on their heads when they were little kids, apparently.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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@dingranne.bsky.social
[ View ] |
That is very interesting, and not surprising at all. I also note that I differ slithtly from the "norm" in two areas. I think that both music and movies were at their peak when i was 20-30.
1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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DMC
@danm44.bsky.social
[ View ] |
An interesting study, but also how extremely unsurprising.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Scarlet Highlord RetPallyJil, the Ashbringer🔥©
@retpallyjil.bsky.social
[ View ] |
File this under "No shit, Sherlock" and "Someone actually paid for this study?"
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Taffit
@taffitt.bsky.social
[ View ] |
So the best times were before any real sense of responsibility, and the best culture was during the formation of an identity? 🤔
0 replies 0 reposts 11 likes
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Torr Leonard 🧵
@torrleonard.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Witty Librarian 2024
@paulwartenberg.bsky.social
[ View ] |
soooo... they proved 80s music is best!
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Dave
@davemck.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I wonder how they calculated the error bars when this seems to be a fairly large rounding bias.
1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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J. A. Baldwin
@jocetta.bsky.social
[ View ] |
And the 1960s and 70s were comfortable for me in particular but not necessarily the country or the world in general. Have a Cold War, some race riots, a couple of oil boycotts, or some stagflation perhaps? *shakes head at people's collective amnesia*
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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J. A. Baldwin
@jocetta.bsky.social
[ View ] |
*blinks* Huh. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. I hit adulthood and concluded they were some of the tackiest, ugliest stylistic decades for centuries. I shuddered when the "retro" cycle hit them. No nostalgia.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Oldstuff
@oldstuff.bsky.social
[ View ] |
LMAO. The good old days were neither Good or Kind.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Navid
@naveman.bsky.social
[ View ] |
We never get the world we believe that we will inherit
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈
@whysharksmatter.bsky.social
[ View ] |
When other people do this it’s evidence of flawed thinking and reasoning, and should be condemned When I do it, it’s obviously correct
1 replies 0 reposts 47 likes
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Sélène
@wasite.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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🔞inchide🔞
@inchide.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Obligatory:
0 replies 1 reposts 4 likes
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Mary M. Burke
@maryburke.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Similarly, those who write about an obscure place always date the arrival of modernity to about when they arrive. I've read this very view in accounts of the Aran Islands in Ireland from about 1800 to about 1990!
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Joseph Britt
@zathras5.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Fascinating use of data, and one that makes intuitive sense. I’ve even noticed myself listening a lot now to music from that period of my life that I didn’t listen to then. Movies, sports, food though….no. Especially food.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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glebs
@glebs.bsky.social
[ View ] |
yea but in the case of the 90s it was actually true
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Akoma
@akoma.bsky.social
[ View ] |
But the best video games did come out in the 90's. It's objective fact 😌
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Space for Dogs
@spacefordogs.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Really damning stuff. “Society was best before I knew what was going on” and “Culture was best when I first started paying attention.” Those dorks need to grow up and adjust to reality
0 replies 9 reposts 65 likes
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Chris Doyon
@nilbog3000.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Nostalgia: the fond remembrance of shit that didn’t happen and a wish to return to a world that only ever existed as a fairytale we unconsciously wrote for ourselves
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Rumpole the Brief
@rumpole-brief.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Nostalgia, baby! Best drug in the world!
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Bob ArdKor
@bob.ardkor.com
[ View ] |
Source : Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Vincent
@vincent2023.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I was 10 in ‘84 and 16 in 1990, so it doesn’t work for me. Crime and crack were everywhere, being shot at was normal, and we knew our music was inferior to what was written for our parents generation. Maybe TV was better without a million streaming platforms for all the garbage that’s out there now.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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@scooterhandles.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Interesting, does this track with increasing isolationist living standards that Americans have been trending towards, as well as the corporate motivation to simplify and reduce the complexity and nuance of musical productions to save on costs? The "most moral" is just funny too lol
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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my dogs are better people than i am
@dascoochie.bsky.social
[ View ] |
How is this not definitive proof that humans are constitutionally idiots that are incapable of groth
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Marc Reeve
@cmraman.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This is news?
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Kurt G
@kurtgegenhuber.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Hmmm … mine seem to cluster around the late 1920s and right now.
0 replies 1 reposts 2 likes
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David Emmett
@motomatters.bsky.social
[ View ] |
"Life was best when I was slim, had all my hair and could fuck all night long"
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Toby
@toribion.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It’s funny having twenty-something kids and watching nostalgia take root in real time.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Tiff Hudson
@thattiffhudson.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I wonder if there's a dip in the fashion data for folks born 1958-1962. The purple turtleneck and rainbow striped white jeans I wore in 1974 is the stuff of pure cringe now.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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TheBaroness
@thebaroness.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Which is fine if you were a socially aware 11 year old, which most 11 year olds are not.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Marissa Chappell Exdeath
@marissarowan.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Let me think... I don't really fit into the nostalgia era.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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ASG
@asg356214.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Why am I laughing? Because I was raised on Disney films and my parents’ niche taste in music (and then more Disney), so I have no idea when the culture was “good.”
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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DreamHollow
@dreamhollow4219.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Nostalgia blinds us all
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes